4 ms·

How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like

by frontman1988 4y ago

How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like China/NK/Russia.

newsclues 4y ago
Identify Targets: access to intel + exploitability Then build a relationship with them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jamestimmins 4y ago
A lot the most famous Cold War spies were "walk-ins", meaning they were Soviet citizens who turned against the Soviet Union (often on ideological grounds) and then literally walked into the US embassy in Moscow or another Soviet state. If they were onsite they'd be debriefed by the CIA personnel there to determine if they were sincere or a plant, and then assigned a handler. Often times that handler was on a diplomatic visa and they'd have a KGB tail, so one part of tradecraft was learning to lose a tail so they could go dark and meet up with their contact or pick up documents/photo negatives at a dropsite. There were plenty of US walk-ins as well who walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. They seem to have typically been motivated by financial goals. According to the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies_working_for_the_Western_Bloc_during_the_Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies...) on Cold War spying, it doesn't look like there are cases of spies being sought out and turned within the Soviet Union. Although, it does mention that some came over to the US when they were Soviet officials assigned to posts outside the USSR, so it's possible they were sought out then. Now that there are business cases to be in China and Russia, we might have non-offical cover agents in those countries without any links to the embassy, but obviously that's just speculation.

4 ms·

How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like

by frontman1988 4y ago

How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like China/NK/Russia.

newsclues 4y ago
Identify Targets: access to intel + exploitability Then build a relationship with them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jamestimmins 4y ago
A lot the most famous Cold War spies were "walk-ins", meaning they were Soviet citizens who turned against the Soviet Union (often on ideological grounds) and then literally walked into the US embassy in Moscow or another Soviet state. If they were onsite they'd be debriefed by the CIA personnel there to determine if they were sincere or a plant, and then assigned a handler. Often times that handler was on a diplomatic visa and they'd have a KGB tail, so one part of tradecraft was learning to lose a tail so they could go dark and meet up with their contact or pick up documents/photo negatives at a dropsite. There were plenty of US walk-ins as well who walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. They seem to have typically been motivated by financial goals. According to the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies_working_for_the_Western_Bloc_during_the_Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies...) on Cold War spying, it doesn't look like there are cases of spies being sought out and turned within the Soviet Union. Although, it does mention that some came over to the US when they were Soviet officials assigned to posts outside the USSR, so it's possible they were sought out then. Now that there are business cases to be in China and Russia, we might have non-offical cover agents in those countries without any links to the embassy, but obviously that's just speculation.